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DC has named Shelly Bond as the new Executive Editor of Vertigo Comics, replacing the departing Karen Berger. When it was announced that Berger was leaving Vertigo after running the imprint for twenty years, Bond was considered by many to be the obvious successor.

Bond is currently the editor in charge of the successful Fables franchise and has helped manage the series and its various spinoffs for the last decade. With the hiatus of American Vampire and the pending cancellation of Hellblazer, Fables is currently Vertigo's lone successful franchise, although DC has promised that 2013 will be an eventful year for the imprint.

Also promoted are Mark Doyle and Will Dennis. Dennis has been promoted to Group Editor and Doyle has been promoted to Editor. Whether any of this bodes well for Vertigo remains to be seen.

It doesn't matter who's in charge of the imprint, really. The fact remains that Dan and the Gang have systematically crippled Vertigo by taking Swamp Thing, John Constantine, etc. away. And, as mentioned, after Hellblazer is off the board, they only have one success running: Fables. It's gonna take more than this sorry state to bode well for Vertigo. And if Karen Berger, with all her years heading Vertigo, didn't have the pull to stop any of the above or come up with replacements, what on Earth makes anyone think Shelly Bond suddenly does??

"DC has promised that 2013 will be an eventful year for the imprint", you say?? Well, how nice. The closing of the imprint that has already been evaporating like water on the surface of the Sun would qualify as an "event", now wouldn't it?? After all, them promising how great a year Cass Cain would have sure never turned out well for her...

Until and unless Ms. Bond can demonstrate how her taking over qualifies as the cavalry coming over the hill, I wouldn't start the party just yet.

But only in specifics. The removal of company owned characters isn't what crippled Vertigo (Hellblazer is long running, but success is a little far. Swamp Thing hasn't been relevant to Vertigo for over a decade). What crippled Vertigo was the new media agreement put into place a couple of years ago. They are now operating at a disadvantage to every other publisher creators could take books to. Also, if creators have the clout to pick a publisher that's going to lock their creations into a single media conglomerate they're much better off pushing for Marvel- at least Disney has a successful television station to push properties on.

A move is so obvious that there is not only not any question as to whether it could happen, but there is no reasonable doubt it wouldn't happen.

This is one of those moves. With her being the editorial head of Verttigo's currently most sucessful ongoing, along with working behind the scenes of many other books in Vertigo's recent history, Ms. Bond definitely has the asset of experience when it comes to how Vertigo works, which helps to make her the most qualified person to see it through this most uncertain time.

That being said, her success or failure will ultimately rest on how much freedom she's going to get. Odds of her getting Berger's Freedom are quite low at best, but if her office is now a Rubber Stamp in terms of power and ability to recruit, then get ready for more GN adaptions of novels that became big time movies.

But only in specifics. The removal of company owned characters isn't what crippled Vertigo (Hellblazer is long running, but success is a little far.

In THIS industry -- and especially in an era in which a whole "wave" of books that were given an ultrahype-propelled continuity reboot sales bump can STILL get cancelled at issue 8 -- "long running" IS a success.

Swamp Thing hasn't been relevant to Vertigo for over a decade).

It was still a piece of IP controlled by Vertigo that it could have rebuilt to success. Frankly, the real problem there seems to be that they haven't figured out how to clone Alan Moore yet...

"Vaughan was last seen working on a revival of Swamp Thing over at Vertigo, which is tantamount to wearing a sign around your neck saying 'I am not Alan Moore, please kick me'."- Paul O'Brien, The X-Axis

Also, if DC proper had to lose character concepts that "haven't been relevant to them for over a decade", then they'd have lost a LOT of their IP pretty easily by now.

What crippled Vertigo was the new media agreement put into place a couple of years ago. They are now operating at a disadvantage to every other publisher creators could take books to.

And again, if Berger couldn't prevent or change this, what's Bond -- SHELLY Bond -- going to do about it??

Also, if creators have the clout to pick a publisher that's going to lock their creations into a single media conglomerate they're much better off pushing for Marvel- at least Disney has a successful television station to push properties on.

Whereas Time Warner has SEVERAL successful CABLE networks -- which, I remind you, are MUCH more likely to present Vertigo concepts unwatered-down than a broadcast network like ABC -- such as NUMEROUS flavors of HBO and Cinemax, TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network's Adult Swim timeslot, etc.

But hey, maybe Disney would air American Vampire stories unaltered on the Disney Channel.Their teen girl audience really likes vampires nowadays, so what could possibly go wrong??

In THIS industry -- and especially in an era in which a whole "wave" of books given an ultra-hype-propelled continuity reboot sales bump can STILL get cancelled at issue 8 -- "long running" IS a success.

It was still a piece of IP controlled by Vertigo that it could have rebuilt to success. Frankly, the real problem there seems to be that they haven't figured out how to clone Alan Moore yet...

"Vaughan was last seen working on a revival of Swamp Thing over at Vertigo, which is tantamount to wearing a sign around your neck saying 'I am not Alan Moore, please kick me'."- Paul O'Brien, The X-Axis

Also, if DC proper had to lose character concepts that "haven't been relevant to them for over a decade", then they'd have lost a LOT of their IP pretty easily by now.

Whereas Time Warner has SEVERAL successful CABLE networks -- which, I remind you, are MUCH more likely to present Vertigo concepts unwatered-down than a broadcast network like ABC -- such as NUMEROUS flavors of HBO and Cinemax, TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network's Adult Swim timeslot, etc.

But hey, maybe Disney will air American Vampire stories unaltered on the Disney Channel.Teen girls really like vampires nowadays, so what could possibly go wrong??

Do you have any idea what you're talking about... no scratch that, because I think you do.

I think the more appropriate question is "Are you so obsessed in winning arguments that you're willing to twist people's words to make yourself look better? The reason why I ask that is because for someone as knowledgable about DC History as you, you should full well know that the reason why Vertigo became as big as it did wasn't the DC transplants by themselves. It was when those transplants worked in concert with the ability to attract talent and give them the freedom to create at their best. If Vertigo still offered that, DC could've taken back the transplant properties at any time and Vertigo wouldn't have missed much of a beat.

It's when those sweetheart deals when away that Vertigo began to feel the burn.

Lord Solaris wrote:Do you have any idea what you're talking about... no scratch that, because I think you do.

I think the more appropriate question is "Are you so obsessed in winning arguments that you're willing to twist people's words to make yourself look better? The reason why I ask that is because for someone as knowledgable about DC History as you, you should full well know that the reason why Vertigo became as big as it did wasn't the DC transplants by themselves.

Given that it was the DC transplants that were the most heavily-advertised part when Vertigo started up in the first place...

...AND that the most perennially-popular, periodically-resurgent Vertigo property is not a creator-owned one, but the DC transplant know as SANDMAN...

...AND that the longest-running AND highest-selling series that the imprint has today is also not a creator-owned one, but the DC transplant known as HELLBLAZER...

...I'm sticking with them as a major reason why Vertigo was a success, thank you. As with Bat-books subsidizing the creation of lesser-selling DCU books, it's been the reliability of the likes of Hellblazer that have allowed Vertigo to take a chance on creator-owned books.

This ain't "twisting people's words", pal; this is looking at the facts of the situation. I do have EVERY idea what I'm talking about; you really ought to ask yourself if YOU do.

It was when those transplants worked in concert with the ability to attract talent and give them the freedom to create at their best.

And that's nice and all. But people didn't buy ALL those creator-owned books that were created in that soil for as long and in as many numbers as they bought SANDMAN and HELLBLAZER books...

If Vertigo still offered that, DC could've taken back the transplant properties at any time

Not with Paul Levitz gone as DC's publisher, leaving the likes of DiDio and Lee in charge...

Last edited by Herald on Wed Dec 19, 2012 12:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.